{
  "schema": "tga.work.v1",
  "identifier": "dresden:vol-12:tribute-to-henry-ward-beecher",
  "slug": "tribute-to-henry-ward-beecher",
  "title": "A Tribute to Henry Ward Beecher",
  "subtitle": "Memorial tribute to the great American preacher.",
  "excerpt": "Memorial tribute to the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher — among the most liberal of America's great Protestant preachers, and a public friend of Ingersoll's in later life.",
  "year": 1887,
  "volume": 12,
  "category": "Tribute",
  "author": {
    "name": "Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "wikidata": "Q360326",
    "viaf": "44331023"
  },
  "isPartOf": {
    "title": "The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "edition": "Dresden Edition",
    "publisher": "C. P. Farrell",
    "year": 1900
  },
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/",
  "url": "https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/tribute-to-henry-ward-beecher/",
  "wordCount": 1831,
  "body": "A Tribute to Henry Ward Beecher\n\nNew York, June 26,1887.\n\nHENRY WARD BEECHER was born in a Puritan penitentiary, of which\nhis father was one of the wardens—a prison with very narrow and\nclosely-grated windows. Under its walls were the rayless, hopeless and\nmeasureless dungeons of the damned, and on its roof fell the shadow of\nGod's eternal frown. In this prison the creed and catechism were primers\nfor children, and from a pure sense of duty their loving hearts were\nstained and scarred with the religion of John Calvin.\n\nIn those days the home of an orthodox minister was an inquisition in\nwhich babes were tortured for the good of their souls. Children then,\nas now, rebelled against the infamous absurdities and cruelties of the\ncreed. No Calvinist was ever able, unless with blows, to answer the\nquestions of his child. Children were raised in what was called \"the\nnurture and admonition of the Lord\"—that is to say, their wills were\nbroken or subdued, their natures were deformed and dwarfed, their\ndesires defeated or destroyed, and their development arrested or\nperverted. Life was robbed of its Spring, its Summer and its Autumn.\nChildren stepped from the cradle into the snow. No laughter, no\nsunshine, no joyous, free, unburdened days. God, an infinite detective,\nwatched them from above, and Satan, with malicious leer, was waiting\nfor their souls below. Between these monsters life was passed. Infinite\nconsequences were predicated of the smallest action, and a burden\ngreater than a God could bear was placed upon the heart and brain of\nevery child. To think, to ask questions, to doubt, to investigate,\nwere acts of rebellion. To express pity for the lost, writhing in the\ndungeons below, was simply to give evidence that the enemy of souls had\nbeen at work within their hearts.\n\nAmong all the religions of this world—from the creed of cannibals who\ndevoured flesh, to that of Calvinists who polluted souls—there is none,\nthere has been none, there will be none, more utterly heartless and\ninhuman than was the orthodox Congregationalism of New England in the\nyear of grace 1813. It despised every natural joy, hated pictures,\nabhorred statues as lewd and lustful things, execrated music, regarded\nnature as fallen and corrupt, man as totally depraved and woman as\nsomewhat worse. The theatre was the vestibule of perdition, actors the\nservants of Satan, and Shakespeare a trifling wretch whose words\nwere seeds of death. And yet the virtues found a welcome, cordial and\nsincere; duty was done as understood; obligations were discharged; truth\nwas told; self-denial was practiced for the sake of others, and many\nhearts were good and true in spite of book and creed.\n\nIn this atmosphere of theological miasma, in this hideous dream of\nsuperstition, in this penitentiary, moral and austere, this babe first\nsaw the imprisoned gloom. The natural desires ungratified, the laughter\nsuppressed, the logic brow-beaten by authority, the humor frozen by\nfear—of many generations—were in this child, a child destined to rend\nand wreck the prison's walls.\n\nThrough the grated windows of his cell, this child, this boy, this man,\ncaught glimpses of the outer world, of fields and skies. New thoughts\nwere in his brain, new hopes within his heart. Another heaven bent above\nhis life. There came a revelation of the beautiful and real.\n\nTheology grew mean and small. Nature wooed and won and saved this mighty\nsoul.\n\nHer countless hands were sowing seeds within his tropic brain. All\nsights and sounds—all colors, forms and fragments—were stored within\nthe treasury of his mind. His thoughts were moulded by the graceful\ncurves of streams, by winding paths in woods, the charm of quiet country\nroads, and lanes grown indistinct with weeds and grass—by vines that\ncling and hide with leaf and flower the crumbling wall's decay—by\ncattle standing in the summer pools like statues of content.\n\nThere was within his words the subtle spirit of the season's change—of\neverything that is, of everything that lies between the slumbering seeds\nthat, half awakened by the April rain, have dreams of heaven's blue, and\nfeel the amorous kisses of the sun, and that strange tomb wherein the\nalchemist doth give to death's cold dust the throb and thrill of life\nagain. He saw with loving eyes the willows of the meadow-streams grow\nred beneath the glance of Spring—the grass along the marsh's edge—the\nstir of life beneath the withered leaves—the moss below the drip of\nsnow—the flowers that give their bosoms to the first south wind that\nwooes—the sad and timid violets that only bear the gaze of love from\neyes half closed—the ferns, where fancy gives a thousand forms with but\na single plan—the green and sunny slopes enriched with daisy's silver\nand the cowslip's gold.\n\nAs in the leafless woods some tree, aflame with life, stands like a rapt\npoet in the heedless crowd, so stood this man among his fellow-men.\n\nAll there is of leaf and bud, of flower and fruit, of painted insect\nlife, and all the winged and happy children of the air that Summer holds\nbeneath her dome of blue, were known and loved by him. He loved the\nyellow Autumn fields, the golden stacks, the happy homes of men, the\norchard's bending boughs, the sumach's flags of flame, the maples\nwith transfigured leaves, the tender yellow of the beech, the wondrous\nharmonies of brown and gold—the vines where hang the clustered spheres\nof wit and mirth. He loved the winter days, the whirl and drift of\nsnow—all forms of frost—the rage and fury of the storm, when in the\nforest, desolate and stripped, the brave old pine towers green and\ngrand—a prophecy of Spring. He heard the rhythmic sounds of Nature's\nbusy strife, the hum of bees, the songs of birds, the eagle's cry, the\nmurmur of the streams, the sighs and lamentations of the winds, and all\nthe voices of the sea. He loved the shores, the vales, the crags and\ncliffs, the city's busy streets, the introspective, silent plain, the\nsolemn splendors of the night, the silver sea of dawn, and evening's\nclouds of molten gold. The love of nature freed this loving man.\n\nOne by one the fetters fell; the gratings disappeared, the sunshine\nsmote the roof, and on the floors of stone, light streamed from open\ndoors. He realized the darkness and despair, the cruelty and hate, the\nstarless blackness of the old, malignant creed. The flower of pity grew\nand blossomed in his heart. The selfish \"consolation\" filled his eyes\nwith tears. He saw that what is called the Christian's hope is, that,\namong the countless billions wrecked and lost, a meagre few perhaps\nmay reach the eternal shore—a hope that, like the desert rain, gives\nneither leaf nor bud—a hope that gives no joy, no peace, to any great\nand loving soul. It is the dust on which the serpent feeds that coils in\nheartless breasts.\n\nDay by day the wrath and vengeance faded from the sky—the Jewish God\ngrew vague and dint—the threats of torture and eternal pain grew vulgar\nand absurd, and all the miracles seemed strangely out of place. They\nclad the Infinite in motley garb, and gave to aureoled heads the cap and\nbells.\n\nTouched by the pathos of all human life, knowing the shadows that fall\non every heart—the thorns in every path, the sighs, the sorrows, and\nthe tears that lie between a mother's arms and death's embrace—this\ngreat and gifted man denounced, denied, and damned with all his heart\nthe fanged and frightful dogma that souls were made to feed the eternal\nhunger—ravenous as famine—of a God's revenge.\n\nTake out this fearful, fiendish, heartless lie—compared with which all\nother lies are true—and the great arch of orthodox religion crumbling\nfalls.\n\nTo the average man the Christian hell and heaven are only words. He has\nno scope of thought. He lives but in a dim, impoverished now. To him the\npast is dead—the future still unborn. He occupies with downcast eyes\nthat narrow line of barren, shifting sand that lies between the flowing\nseas. But Genius knows all time. For him the dead all live and breathe,\nand act their countless parts again. All human life is in his now, and\nevery moment feels the thrill of all to be.\n\nNo one can overestimate the good accomplished by this marvelous,\nmany-sided man. He helped to slay the heart-devouring monster of the\nChristian world. He tried to civilize the church, to humanize the\ncreeds, to soften pious breasts of stone, to take the fear from mothers'\nhearts, the chains of creed from every brain, to put the star of hope\nin every sky and over every grave. Attacked on every side, maligned\nby those who preached the law of love, he wavered not, but fought\nwhole-hearted to the end.\n\nObstruction is but virtue's foil. From thwarted light leaps color's\nflame. The stream impeded has a song.\n\nHe passed from harsh and cruel creeds to that serene philosophy that has\nno place for pride or hate, that threatens no revenge, that looks on sin\nas stumblings of the blind and pities those who fall, knowing that in\nthe souls of all there is a sacred yearning for the light. He ceased\nto think of man as something thrust upon the world—an exile from\nsome other sphere. He felt at last that men are part of Nature's\nself—kindred of all life—the gradual growth of countless years; that\nall the sacred books were helps until outgrown, and all religions rough\nand devious paths that man has worn with weary feet in sad and painful\nsearch for truth and peace. To him these paths were wrong, and yet all\ngave the promise of success. He knew that all the streams, no matter how\nthey wander, turn and curve amid the hills or rocks, or linger in the\nlakes and pools, must some time reach the sea. These views enlarged his\nsoul and made him patient with the world, and while the wintry snows of\nage were falling on his head, Spring, with all her wealth of bloom, was\nin his heart.\n\nThe memory of this ample man is now a part of Nature's wealth. He\nbattled for the rights of men. His heart was with the slave. He stood\nagainst the selfish greed of millions banded to protect the pirate's\ntrade. His voice was for the right when freedom's friends were few. He\ntaught the church to think and doubt. He did not fear to stand\nalone. His brain took counsel of his heart. To every foe he offered\nreconciliation's hand. He loved this land of ours, and added to its\nglory through the world. He was the greatest orator that stood within\nthe pulpit's narrow curve. He loved the liberty of speech. There was no\ntrace of bigot in his blood. He was a brave and generous man.\n\nWith reverent hands, I place this tribute on his tomb.\n"
}